Mass Effect: Desperation
Mass Effect: Desperation is a story detailing the attack on the colony of Lavira during the War of the Reapers from the perspective of Commander Zenawi. Characters *''Commander Zenawi'' *''Admiral Larijani'' *''Erich Strauss'' Prelude Commander Zenawi rushed from the elevator and onto the Command Deck of the SSV Kadam, approaching Admiral Larijani with an expression of terror in his face. Larijani knew it was bad, he just prayed it had nothing to do with Lavira - his home colony. Zenawi: "Admiral..." Larijani: "Please, don't tell me." Zenawi: "It's Lavira..." Larijani: "...Any word?" Zenawi: "No. All communications are down but the High Admiralty fears the worst... I'm sorry." Larijani's heart sank into his stomach and he grew sick. Lavira wasn't just the world that he was born on, it was where everything he loved resided aswell. From his elderly parents to his beloved wife and growing child, the thought of losing any of them made him grow sadder and angrier by the minute. Zenawi watched the Admiral as he could tell he was about to give a crazy yet wanted order. Larijani: "Zenawi, prepare your marines - we're going to Lavira." Zenawi: "Aye, Aye Admiral!" Larijani rushed to the helmsmen and deckhands at the helm of the SSV Kadam, ordering them to prepare for Faster-than-Light travel to the Rhea System then made his way to the CIC room to order the captains of the other ships within the Fourth Fleet to maintain formation. The armada of Alliance ships made their way to the nearest mass relay in the area for their charge toward Lavira. Chapter 1 The SSV Kadam followed by the rest of Fourth Fleet neared Lavira. From the Observation Deck of the Kadam, Larijani could see the devastation. The colony's local defenses consisting of an Alliance fleet and multiple orbital platforms had been rendered into a cloud of debris and fires on the surface of the planet could be seen from space as Lavira's larger cities were burning. Zenawi approached Larijani as he looked out the Observation, already fully-clad in his combat hardsuit with his helmet held between his hip and arm. Larijani: "It's worse than I thought. I figured the home defenses would still be active when we got here but..." Zenawi: "Sir, these are we're dealing with. It's to be expected." Larijani: "Of course... They must've made surface contact. I almost feel bad having you go down there." Zenawi: "Somebody's got to do it, Admiral." Larijani: "Right, same plan as on Corin. Give us the coordinates and we'll hit them from orbit." Zenawi: "Aye, Aye... While I'm down there, I'll see what I can do about your loved ones." Larijani: "...Don't bother. It's probably too late." Zenawi: "While there's still a chance, you should never give up. I will find them." Zenawi walked from the room and made his way down to the deployment hangars. He could tell that the Admiral started to look at the big picture. Reapers weren't like most enemies in the galaxy; when they attacked, survival rates for colonists were usually around 8%. He knew Larijani didn't want to believe that his family was more than likey dead or abducted by the Reapers but realistically, one of the two more than likely happened. Zenawi and his marines piled-up into the Valkyrie Transports waiting for them in the hangar. As they prepared to launch, Zenawi linked his comms unit with the other marine commander in the Fourth Fleet who were preparing to deploy to other parts of Lavira. The hangar bay-doors slowly creeped open and the vacuum of space sucked out the air from the hangar. The restraints were lifted from the fleet of Valkyries and one by one, they poured from the Kadam. Other waves of the transports dispersed from their mother ships aswell and barrelled toward the surface of Lavira's battered surface. Zenawi's group pf Valkyries was the first to pierce through the upper-atmosphere and break through the bottom of the clouds. Now in Lavira's lower-atmosphere, Zenawi got a much better look at the devastation. He could see the metropolis of Lavira's capital city crumbling as fires engulfed skyscrapers. Even more terrifying, he could see them; immense Reapers with their claw-like prongs extended over the ground with small Alliance gunships buzzing around them like pesky nats. The dropships in the group split from one another, some being shot down while others managed to land on uneffected buildings near various Reapers. Zenawi and two other marines jumped out of the Valkyrie as it sat on the building, it's engines on standby. They unfolded a Dead-Eye and aimed it at a nearby landed Reaper. The laser beamed from the Dead Eye and VI programming inside of the device took only a few seconds to calculate the massive machine's exact geographical location and transmit it to the Fourth Fleet. Other groups of marines used the same device on other Reapers before piling back into the Valkyries and taking back to the air for safety reasons. In orbit above Lavira, after all of the coordinates had been taken, the ships prepared their mass accelerator cannons. In their current state, the Reapers were near-invulnerable to light weapons fire from gunships but were susceptible to strikes from a powerful mass accelerator round. One by one, the ships of Fourth Fleet rained 20 kilograms hot metal going 4000 miles a second on top of the Reapers, shredding through their shields and hulls completely. The strikes were enough to kill eight Reapers, however, atleast eleven others were landed in the city and they re-entered their combat state before they could be completely destroyed. With their shields back at full strength and their attention now on the sky, Larinjani and the rest of Fourth Fleet would now have to prepared for full-frontal combat. The surviving Reapers began to lift off of the planet's surface, causing nearby weakened buildings to collapse from the energy exerted from the Reaper's element zero cores. While the Fourth Fleet prepared to do battle with the advanced warships, Zenawi and the marines prepared to assist the remnants of the colonial defenses on the surface of Lavira. The Valkyries landed in the streets of the capital city near makeshift battlements of Alliance marines and civilian forces. Zenawi and his men approached Alliance marines firing over a barricade of concrete blockades and sand bags. The man in-charge of the battlement was Operations Chief Strauss. Strauss: "It's about time reinforcements arrived! We've been holding this position for hours!" Zenawi: "Give me a sitrep!" Strauss: "For hours they just kept sending in these corpse-looking things!" Zenawi: " ; they use them to overwhelm or weaken defenses." Strauss: "They do the their job well. We've gone through all our ammo 'cause it takes so much to put them down." Zenawi: "Don't worry, we've got your back. We brought some supplies along with us too." Strauss: "Good, we'll need you. Husks aren't the only thing they have out there." Zenawi: "What do you mean?" Strauss: "Every so often we catch a glimpse of these things just watching us like they're waiting for something." Zenawi: "Shit, I ran into the same thing on Corin. Once they see a break in the defenses, they'll strike." Strauss: "So what do we do?" Zenawi: "We strike first!" Chapter 2 Category:MasterChiefz Category:Fan Fiction Category:Under Construction